Barry's throat was still too dry to respond when the sound of boots on stone echoed through the cave. Tony's head snapped toward the entrance, his expression shifting from scientific curiosity to calculated neutrality in an instant.
"Showtime," Tony muttered, stepping away from Barry. "Yinsen, look medical."
The older man moved quickly to Barry's side, placing a hand on his forehead as if checking for fever. Barry, still disoriented, tried to sit up, but Yinsen gently pushed him back down.
"Stay still," Yinsen whispered. "Don't speak. Barely move."
Raza strode into the cave, flanked by two armed guards. His eyes swept the space, taking in the scattered missile components, the makeshift forge, and—immediately—Barry, awake and alert on his blanket.
"Ah," Raza said, his voice carrying that same dangerous pleasantness. "The sleeping weapon awakens."
Tony positioned himself between Raza and Barry, casual but deliberate. "He's barely conscious. Been out for four days. Give him a minute."
Raza ignored him, gesturing to his guards. They moved forward, weapons ready.
"Bring him," Raza ordered. "I want to know what he is. What technology allows him to appear from nothing. To vibrate like a machine."
"That's a terrible idea," Tony said flatly.
Raza's eyes narrowed. "You do not give orders here, Stark."
"I'm not giving orders. I'm giving medical advice." Tony crossed his arms, the arc reactor glowing faintly beneath his shirt. "That kid's been in some kind of metabolic crisis for four days. His body was tearing itself apart at the cellular level. The stabilizer I built—" he gestured to the arc reactor on Barry's chest, "—is the only thing keeping him alive right now. You drag him off for interrogation in his current state, and he'll either die or destabilize again. And trust me, you don't want him destabilizing."
"Why not?"
"Because when he vibrates uncontrollably, he generates an electromagnetic field that could fry every electronic device within fifty feet. Including the guidance systems for all those lovely missiles you're stockpiling." Tony's voice was matter-of-fact. "So unless you want to turn your entire weapons cache into very expensive paperweights, I'd suggest letting him recover for at least another day or two."
It was complete bullshit, but Raza didn't know that.
The terrorist leader studied Tony for a long moment, then looked at Barry. The young man's eyes were open but unfocused, his breathing shallow. The arc reactor on his chest pulsed with rhythmic light.
"He does look weak," Raza admitted.
"He's been unconscious for *four days*," Yinsen added, his hand still on Barry's forehead. "His body temperature is elevated. His pulse is erratic. As a physician, I strongly recommend—"
"You are not a physician," Raza interrupted.
"I have medical training," Yinsen said calmly. "Enough to know that interrogating someone in his condition would be pointless. He can barely focus his eyes. What useful information could you possibly extract?"
Raza's jaw tightened, but he stepped back. "Two days. He has two days to recover. Then I will have answers." He turned to Tony. "As for you, Stark, I grow impatient. Show me progress on the Jericho."
Tony's expression didn't change, but Barry—even in his disoriented state—could sense tension radiating from the man. "Of course. Right this way."
He led Raza to the workbench, where a large sheet of metal served as an impromptu drafting table. Spread across it were detailed technical drawings, covered in calculations, measurements, and component diagrams.
"These are the primary guidance assembly schematics," Tony said, gesturing to the blueprints with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was talking about. "As you can see, the Jericho uses a clustered warhead delivery system with individual targeting protocols for each sub-munition."
Raza leaned over the drawings, his eyes scanning the complex technical details. Barry, watching from his position on the floor, could see the blueprints were covered in legitimate-looking engineering notation—curves, vectors, mathematical formulas that looked impressively complicated.
"This is the Jericho?" Raza asked.
"This is the *beginning* of the Jericho," Tony corrected. "The guidance system alone requires precision machining and component integration that takes time. See this assembly here?" He tapped a particularly complex section. "This is the gyroscopic stabilizer array. Without it, the missile tumbles mid-flight and explodes randomly. With it, you can put a warhead through a window from twenty miles away."
It was a masterful performance. Tony spoke with absolute authority, pointing out technical details that sounded incredibly important. The fact that the blueprints were actually for something completely different—something Barry's still-foggy mind couldn't quite process—was irrelevant. Raza couldn't read engineering schematics any more than he could read ancient Sanskrit.
"How much longer?" Raza demanded.
"For the guidance system? Another week, maybe two." Tony straightened. "For the full missile assembly, complete with warhead integration and targeting computers? Six weeks. Minimum."
"You said you could build this."
"I can. I am. But you're asking for the most advanced weapons system on the planet, and I'm building it in a cave with hand tools and spare parts." Tony's voice hardened slightly. "You want fast, or you want it to work? Because I can give you a pile of expensive scrap metal by tomorrow if you prefer."
Raza's hand moved to the pistol at his belt, and Barry felt his body tense instinctively. The Speed Force hummed under his skin, ready to move, to protect—
But Yinsen caught his eye and gave a subtle shake of his head. *Not yet.*
After a long, tense moment, Raza removed his hand from the weapon. "Six weeks. But I will be watching your progress, Stark. Every day. And if I suspect you are deceiving me..."
He didn't finish the threat. He didn't need to.
"Understood," Tony said evenly.
Raza took one more look at the blueprints, then at Barry, then nodded to his guards. They filed out of the cave, leaving the three prisoners alone.
Tony waited until the footsteps faded completely before letting out a long breath. "Well, that was fun. Nothing like a little light treason and technical fraud to start the morning."
"He believed you?" Yinsen asked quietly.
"Why wouldn't he? I'm Tony Stark. I could draw a picture of a duck and tell him it's a nuclear reactor, and he'd believe me." Tony turned back to Barry, who was now sitting up slowly, one hand pressed to the arc reactor on his chest. "Now, where were we? Oh right. The part where you tell me what the hell you are."
Barry's throat was still dry, but he managed to croak out: "Water?"
"Right. Basic human needs. Yinsen?"
The older man brought over a metal cup filled with tepid water. Barry drank gratefully, feeling his voice return.
"Thanks," he said, his voice still rough but functional. "How long was I out?"
"Four days," Tony said, pulling up his makeshift chair. "Four days of you vibrating, sparking, and generally defying the laws of physics. I built you that arc reactor—" he tapped the glowing device on Barry's chest, "—to stabilize your molecular structure. Which, by the way, you're welcome for. Custom engineering doesn't come cheap."
Barry looked down at the device on his chest, feeling its steady pulse, its rhythmic energy flow. He could sense it now, could feel how it was helping anchor his cells to a stable frequency. The Speed Force had been right—without it, his body would have torn itself apart.
"Thank you," Barry said sincerely, meeting Tony's eyes. "Seriously. You saved my life."
"Yeah, well, I'm trying to cut back on the whole 'building weapons that kill people' thing. Figured I'd try the opposite for a change." Tony leaned forward. "Now talk. Who are you really? What happened to you? And how the hell did you appear in the middle of an Afghan desert from a city that doesn't exist?"
Barry opened his mouth, then closed it. How did you explain the Speed Force? Time travel? Alternate realities? To a man who, despite his genius, lived in a world where—as far as Barry knew—superheroes didn't exist?
"This is going to sound insane," Barry began.
Tony gestured to the arc reactor in his own chest. "Kid, I'm sitting in a cave in Afghanistan with a miniature fusion reactor in my chest, having just lied to a terrorist about building him a missile while secretly planning an escape using technology that shouldn't be possible. Try me."
Barry took a breath, feeling the Speed Force humming in his cells, and began to talk.
"My name is Barry Allen. I'm from Central City—which does exist, just... not here. Not in this world. I'm a forensic scientist for the police department. And four days ago, I was struck by lightning from a particle accelerator explosion that was deliberately sabotaged by a time traveler from the future who murdered my mother when I was a child."
Tony blinked. Then blinked again.
"Okay," he said slowly. "I stand corrected. That is officially the most insane thing I've ever heard. And I once watched a man eat a live scorpion on a dare in Dubai."
"It's the truth," Barry said.
"I believe you believe it's the truth." Tony stood, pacing. "But let's break this down. Time travel. Particle accelerators. Alternate worlds. That's not just insane, that's—"
He stopped mid-sentence, staring at Barry. Then at the arc reactor on his chest. Then at his own arc reactor.
"You appeared out of nowhere," Tony said slowly, his engineer's mind clearly working through the problem. "Surrounded by scorch marks. Like something had torn through reality itself. Your body was oscillating at frequencies that should have torn you apart. And now you're sitting there with what looks like superhuman reflexes—I saw your eyes track Raza's guard moving before he even finished moving."
"I have superspeed," Barry confirmed quietly. "The lightning strike connected me to something called the Speed Force. It's... hard to explain. But it lets me move faster than normal humans. A lot faster."
"How fast?"
"I don't know exactly. Fast enough that time seems to slow down around me when I run. Fast enough to..." Barry hesitated. "Fast enough to be dangerous."
Tony and Yinsen exchanged glances.
"Prove it," Tony said.
"What?"
"Prove it. Show me. Because right now, you're either the most elaborate hallucination I've ever had, or you're telling the truth about something that rewrites everything I know about physics. Either way, I need to see it."
Barry looked at the cave entrance, at the guards outside, then back at Tony. "If I use my speed, they'll hear. They'll come investigate."
"Then be quiet about it." Tony crossed his arms. "Come on, kid. You're asking me to believe in impossible things. Give me something to work with here."
Barry considered for a moment, then nodded. He stood slowly, testing his legs. The arc reactor pulsed against his chest, steady and stable. He could feel the Speed Force responding, eager, ready.
He took a breath, tapped into that well of energy, and moved.
To Tony and Yinsen, Barry simply vanished. One moment he was standing by his blanket, the next he was across the cave. Then by the workbench. Then at the entrance. Then back where he started—all in the space of a single heartbeat.
Barry stopped, electricity crackling faintly across his skin before dissipating. "Fast enough?"
Tony's mouth hung open. Yinsen had taken an involuntary step backward.
"Holy shit," Tony breathed. "You're... you actually..."
"I'm a speedster," Barry said simply. "And I'm stuck in your world until the Speed Force can generate enough power to send me home. Which could take months. Maybe longer."
Tony stared at him for a long moment, his mind clearly racing.
Then, impossibly, he smiled.
"Okay," Tony said. "Okay. I can work with this. Forget the Jericho. Forget Raza. We're getting out of here, and you—" he pointed at Barry, "—you're going to help."
"How?"
Tony's smile widened into something almost manic.
"Kid, you're asking a genius how to escape a cave when we have literal superspeed on our side?" He laughed. "Trust me. I have a plan. And it involves fire, metal, and you running very, very fast."
Outside, a guard shouted something. They all froze.
But it was just a shift change. Nothing urgent.
Tony looked at Barry, at Yinsen, at the two arc reactors glowing in the dim cave light.
"Six weeks," he said quietly. "Raza thinks I'm building him the Jericho. What I'm actually building is our ticket out of here. Can you be ready in six weeks?"
Barry thought of the Speed Force's training, of everything he'd learned, of the lightning in his veins and the impossible speed at his fingertips.
"I'll be ready," he said.
"Good." Tony turned back to his workbench. "Then let's get to work. We've got an escape to plan, a speedster to train, and a terrorist to disappoint. Should be fun."
And in the cave in Afghanistan, three prisoners began to plan an impossible escape.
—
Tony spread the blueprints across the workbench, the ones he'd shown Raza. "So here's what our terrorist friend thinks I'm building."
Barry and Yinsen leaned in, studying the complex technical drawings. Barry's eyes moved quickly across the schematics, picking out components, tracing connection paths, analyzing the engineering.
"This is a guidance system," Barry said after a moment. "For a missile. But the power distribution doesn't make sense. These capacitors are way oversized for what you'd need, and this housing—" he tapped a section, "—this isn't aerodynamic at all."
Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Huh. Forensics guy knows his engineering."
"I minored in mechanical engineering. Needed it for understanding accident reconstruction." Barry's eyes kept scanning. "Plus I work with a lot of technical equipment in the lab. You learn to read schematics."
"Not bad, CSI." Tony pulled out a piece of worn tracing paper from his pocket, the edges torn and dirty. "But you're right. This isn't a guidance system. Or rather, it is, but not for a missile."
He carefully laid the tracing paper over the blueprints, aligning it precisely. New lines appeared—curved plates, articulated joints, what looked like a humanoid form emerging from the technical components beneath.
"This," Tony said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper, "is what I'm actually building."
Barry stared. The overlay transformed the confusing missile components into something else entirely—a suit. An armored suit, crude but functional, with the arc reactor at its heart and the "guidance systems" actually serving as joint actuators and power distribution nodes.
"You're building armor," Barry breathed. "Powered armor."
"Not just armor. A weapon. A walking, talking, heavily armed middle finger to everyone who thinks Tony Stark is just going to roll over and die in this cave." Tony's finger traced the outline. "Iron armor. Powered by the arc reactor. Strong enough to punch through walls, tough enough to withstand small arms fire, and armed with enough firepower to blast our way through anything standing between us and freedom."
Yinsen was shaking his head in amazement. "This is what you've been designing? While building the arc reactors?"
"Sleep is overrated anyway." Tony pointed to various components. "Most of these pieces are already fabricated—Raza just doesn't know what they're actually for. The chest plate, the arm servos, the leg actuators—he thinks they're all Jericho components. By the time he figures out what I'm really building, I'll be wearing it."
"This is incredible," Barry said, his mind already racing through the implications. "But it's heavy, right? You're talking about metal plates thick enough to stop bullets. How are you going to move fast enough to fight in this?"
"I'm not. That's not the point." Tony looked at him seriously. "The Mark I—that's what I'm calling it—isn't about speed. It's about protection and overwhelming force. I get inside, power it up, and turn myself into a tank. Then I walk through whoever's in my way."
"And me?" Barry asked. "Where do I fit in?"
Tony's expression shifted to something calculating. "That's what we need to figure out. What exactly can you do besides run fast? And how fast are we talking? Because 'fast' could mean anything from Olympic sprinter to—"
"Faster than sound," Barry said quietly. "At least, I think so. The Speed Force—the entity that trained me while I was unconscious—she said I could eventually move faster than light. But right now, I'm probably somewhere around the speed of sound. Maybe faster with a running start."
Tony's mouth opened, closed, then opened again. "I'm sorry, did you just casually mention moving faster than *light*?"
"Eventually. With training. Right now I'm still figuring out how not to run through walls."
"Through walls," Tony repeated slowly.
"I can vibrate my molecules to pass through solid matter. It's... complicated. And dangerous. I could get stuck halfway through if I lose concentration." Barry touched the arc reactor on his chest. "This helps. Keeps my cells stable so I don't accidentally phase through the floor."
Yinsen sat down heavily on a crate. "I think I need a moment to process this conversation."
Tony, however, was leaning forward with the intense focus of someone solving a fascinating puzzle. "Okay. Okay. So you have superspeed. You can phase through matter. What else?"
Barry hesitated, then decided full disclosure was better than surprises later. "I can generate lightning. Throw it, like a weapon. But it drains me, so I have to be careful. And I can create... the Speed Force called them speed mirages. Basically, I move so fast I can make it look like there are multiple versions of me."
"You can create illusions."
"Sort of. They're more like afterimages. They can't interact with anything, but they look real enough to confuse people."
Tony was nodding, his fingers already sketching modifications on a spare piece of paper. "This changes everything. I was planning to just punch our way out, but if you can move that fast, we can coordinate. I draw their fire, you disable their weapons. I create a distraction, you evacuate any other prisoners. We could—"
"There's a limit," Barry interrupted. "The Speed Force warned me. Every time I use my powers, I'm burning through my body's energy reserves at an incredible rate. Push too hard, and I'll collapse. Or worse."
"Define worse."
"Explode. Scatter my atoms across dimensions. Phase through something and get stuck. Take your pick." Barry's expression was serious. "I'm powerful, but I'm not invincible. And I'm not fully trained. I've had maybe the equivalent of a few weeks of practice in a mental training space. In real combat, against real bullets, I could make a fatal mistake."
Tony absorbed this, his engineer's mind clearly recalculating probabilities. "Then we plan carefully. We use your speed strategically, not constantly. Hit-and-run tactics. Disable, retreat, repeat."
"That could work," Barry said slowly. "But I need to know more about what we're up against. How many guards? What kind of weapons? What's the layout of this place?"
"About twenty guards, most with AK-47s. Some with RPGs. The cave exits into a canyon complex—narrow passages, multiple levels. Lots of places to get pinned down." Tony pointed to a rough map he'd sketched earlier. "Our biggest problem is the bottleneck at the entrance. Even with armor and superspeed, if they concentrate their fire, we're in trouble."
Barry studied the map, and Tony noticed something odd—the young man's eyes were moving impossibly fast, scanning every detail, every notation, processing information at a rate that seemed... wrong.
"You're doing it again," Tony said.
"Doing what?"
"That thing where your eyes move too fast. Like you're reading at superspeed."
"Oh." Barry looked up. "Yeah. Everything about me is fast now. Including my thinking and processing. The Speed Force said my neurons fire faster, my brain processes information faster. I perceive time differently than you do."
Tony's brain immediately went to a joke about fast performance in other areas, then thought better of it. Focus, Stark. "So you can think faster than normal humans?"
"Significantly faster. Which helps in combat—I can analyze situations, calculate probabilities, all in the split second before I move. But it also means conversations feel..." Barry paused, searching for words. "Slower. Like waiting for a webpage to load on dial-up."
"That must be incredibly frustrating."
"It's an adjustment." Barry smiled slightly. "But it means I can keep up with you when you start throwing around engineering jargon."
Tony laughed despite himself. "Smart speedster. That's a dangerous combination." He turned back to the blueprints. "Okay, here's what I'm thinking. We spend the next six weeks finalizing both plans. I finish the Mark I, you practice your abilities in controlled bursts—nothing that attracts attention. We coordinate our approach, plan contingencies, and on day forty-two, we blow this popsicle stand in the most spectacular way possible."
"What about Yinsen?" Barry asked, looking at the older man. "No offense, but you can't run at superspeed and you can't wear the armor."
"None taken," Yinsen said dryly. "I was wondering the same thing."
Tony's expression grew serious. "Yinsen comes with us. Non-negotiable. We'll need someone to cover our exit, navigate, maybe provide covering fire if we can get him a weapon. Plus, he knows the area. We don't."
"I appreciate the sentiment," Yinsen said quietly. "But I'm not sure I'll slow you down more than help."
"We're not leaving anyone behind," Tony said firmly. "That's the deal. All three of us get out, or none of us do."
Barry nodded. "Agreed. So we need a plan that accounts for three people moving at different speeds through hostile territory."
"Then we'd better start planning." Tony pulled over more paper, already sketching tactical approaches. "Barry, you said you can carry people while running, right?"
"I... think so? I haven't tried."
"Then we practice. Start with small objects, work your way up. If you can carry Yinsen even for short bursts, that solves a lot of problems." Tony's pen moved rapidly across the paper. "We'll need fallback positions, rally points, emergency protocols. This has to be airtight."
"One question," Barry said. "When we get out—assuming we survive—what then? I'm stuck in this world with no identity, no money, no way home. You're Tony Stark, you'll be fine. But me?"
Tony looked up, and for a moment, something surprisingly genuine crossed his face. "Then you come with me. Back to the States. I'll figure something out—fake identity, job, whatever you need. Consider it payment for helping save my life."
"I haven't saved it yet."
"You will." Tony's smile was confident. "Because we're going to build something amazing here, Barry Allen. An armored suit and a speedster, breaking out of a terrorist prison in Afghanistan. They're going to tell stories about this."
"If we survive."
"When we survive," Tony corrected. "I'm an optimist. It's one of my most annoying qualities."
From the cave entrance, a guard shouted something in Urdu.
"Shift change," Yinsen translated. "We're good for another few hours."
Tony carefully folded the tracing paper and tucked it back in his pocket, leaving only the innocent-looking Jericho blueprints visible. "Then let's get to work. We've got six weeks to build a miracle."
Barry looked at his hands, feeling the Speed Force humming just beneath his skin, waiting to be unleashed. Six weeks to master powers he barely understood. Six weeks to plan an impossible escape.
Six weeks until he found out if he was really the hero the Speed Force believed he could be.
"Let's do it," Barry said.
And in a cave in Afghanistan, three prisoners began building their escape—one with armor, one with speed, and one with hope that maybe, just maybe, they could all make it home alive.
—
The cave settled into a new rhythm over the following days. Tony worked on the Mark I with meticulous precision, fabricating components under the guise of building the Jericho. Yinsen assisted, playing the role of medical supervisor for Barry while actually serving as lookout and translator. And Barry practiced.
"Again," Tony called out from his workbench, not looking up from the servo mechanism he was calibrating. "But slower this time. Control, not speed."
Barry nodded, took a breath, and moved. He crossed the cave at what felt like a leisurely jog—though to normal human perception, he'd simply blurred from one position to another. He stopped precisely at the marked position Tony had indicated with a piece of chalk.
"Better," Tony acknowledged. "Your deceleration is smoother. Less skidding, more controlled stop."
"It's getting easier," Barry said, barely breathing hard despite having just moved at several hundred miles per hour. "The arc reactor helps. Gives me something stable to anchor to."
"Good. Because we can't have you overshooting and running face-first into a canyon wall during the escape." Tony finally looked up. "How's your stamina? How many bursts like that can you manage before you're tapped out?"
Barry considered. "Hard to say exactly. Maybe twenty or thirty full-speed sprints before I start feeling drained? More if I pace myself."
"We'll need to be strategic then." Tony made a note on his ever-present scraps of paper. "Save the speed for when we absolutely need it. Speaking of which..."
He stood and walked over to where Barry's original clothes were folded in the corner—the button-up shirt, jeans, and sneakers he'd been wearing when he materialized in the desert. Tony picked up the shirt, examining it critically.
"This isn't going to work," he said.
"What do you mean?"
Tony held up the shirt, pointing to several places where the fabric had torn and frayed. "You said you can vibrate through solid matter, right? Your molecules pass through, but your clothes don't have superpowers. Look at this—the seams are already coming apart just from the ambient vibrations while you were unconscious. You start actually using your abilities in combat, and you're going to shred these in minutes."
Barry looked down at himself, currently wearing the same clothes minus the shirt, which Yinsen had helped him remove to attach the arc reactor harness. "I didn't think about that."
"Well, I did. Because as much as I appreciate good abs, I'd rather not navigate the Afghan desert with a naked speedster." Tony tossed the shirt back. "We need to make you something more durable."
"Make me something?" Barry raised an eyebrow. "Like what, a costume?"
"Like practical protective gear that won't disintegrate the first time you phase through a wall." Tony was already moving to his material stockpile—the collected remnants of dismantled missiles and salvaged equipment. "I'm thinking layered kevlar from the missile casings, reinforced with a polymer mesh. Something flexible enough for mobility but tough enough to handle the stress of your vibrations."
"You're going to build me a supersuit in a cave in Afghanistan," Barry said slowly.
"I'm building myself a walking tank in a cave in Afghanistan. A suit for you is comparatively easy." Tony pulled out a roll of ballistic fabric he'd salvaged from a damaged flak jacket. "Besides, this is practical. You need protection. These terrorists have guns, and while you're fast, bullets are also fast. You get clipped once because your concentration wavers, and speed won't save you from bleeding out."
Barry had to admit he had a point. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"
Tony grabbed a piece of charcoal and started sketching on a flat section of cave wall. "Something streamlined. No cape—that's just a liability waiting to happen. Form-fitting so it doesn't catch on anything when you're moving at speed. Reinforced padding at impact points—shoulders, elbows, knees. The kevlar will handle most small arms fire, at least at range."
"What about the arc reactor?" Barry touched the device on his chest. "I need to keep this accessible."
"Central cutout, obviously. We'll build the harness into the suit itself, make it integral rather than this improvised leather strap situation." Tony's sketch was taking shape—something that looked almost like a compression suit, practical rather than flashy. "Color-wise, we're limited to what we have. Probably going to end up with a lot of black and dark gray. Maybe some red accents if I can find the right material."
"Red?" Barry asked.
"Why not? If you're going to be running around at superspeed saving lives, might as well look distinctive. Plus, psychological warfare—bright colors confuse enemies expecting tactical gear." Tony stepped back from his sketch. "Of course, this is all theoretical until we see if I can actually fabricate it with what we have."
Yinsen approached, studying the sketch with interest. "This is ambitious, even for you."
"I contain multitudes," Tony said. "Besides, we've got six weeks and I work well under pressure. Speaking of which, Barry, I need your measurements."
Over the next hour, Tony took meticulous measurements of Barry's frame using improvised tools—a piece of string, a ruler fashioned from a metal strip, and a lot of estimation. Barry found himself standing in various awkward poses while Tony muttered calculations under his breath.
"You're built like a runner," Tony observed. "Lean muscle, low body fat. Good for speed, less good for taking hits. The padding will help with that."
"I've never really been in a fight before," Barry admitted. "Not a real one. The Speed Force trained me, but that was... different. Not real."
"Then we practice." Tony straightened. "Yinsen, you were military, right?"
"Many years ago," Yinsen confirmed.
"Good enough. Show our speedster some basic hand-to-hand. Nothing fancy—just how to throw a punch without breaking his own thumb, how to grapple, basic defensive positions." Tony returned to his workbench. "Barry, your speed is your primary weapon, but you need backup skills. What happens if you're exhausted and someone gets close?"
"I get punched," Barry said dryly.
"Exactly. So we fix that." Tony began sorting through materials. "You practice with Yinsen in the mornings while I work on the Mark I. Afternoons, you practice your speed work—controlled bursts, precision stops, that lightning thing you mentioned. Evenings, we all work together on escape planning."
"That's a full schedule," Barry said.
"We're on a deadline. Literally." Tony glanced toward the cave entrance where guards patrolled. "Every day we're here is a day closer to Raza figuring out I'm not really building his missile. When that happens, we need to be ready to move. Which means you need to be combat-ready, suited up, and able to coordinate with my walking tank."
Barry nodded slowly. The reality of their situation was settling in—this wasn't just an adventure or an escape plan. This was survival. Life or death. And people were counting on him to be ready.
"There's something else," Barry said quietly. "The Speed Force warned me. Using my powers burns through energy fast. Really fast. What if I run out mid-escape?"
"Then we adapt." Tony's voice was firm. "That's why we're planning multiple contingencies. If you're tapped out, you get behind me and the Mark I becomes your cover. If I'm disabled, you grab me and run. If everything goes to hell, we improvise. But we don't give up."
"He's right," Yinsen added. "In combat, no plan survives contact with the enemy. What matters is having teammates you trust and the will to keep fighting."
Barry looked at these two men—a genius billionaire with a glowing reactor in his chest and a former surgeon turned prisoner—and realized that somewhere in this cave, they'd become more than fellow captives. They'd become a team.
"Okay," Barry said. "Let's do this. Training, suit fabrication, escape planning. Whatever it takes."
"That's the spirit." Tony pulled out a piece of kevlar and began cutting. "Now hold still—I need to test if this material can handle your vibration frequency without tearing. This is going to feel weird."
"Weirder than having an arc reactor strapped to my chest?"
"Significantly weirder. Trust me."
As Tony worked, measuring and cutting and muttering calculations, Barry caught a glimpse of his reflection in a polished piece of metal. The arc reactor glowed on his chest, his body was leaner than it had been, and his eyes seemed to spark with barely contained energy.
He didn't look like a forensic scientist from Central City anymore. He looked like someone becoming something else.
A hero, maybe. If he survived long enough to earn the title.
"Stop daydreaming," Tony called out. "I need you to vibrate at exactly 47 hertz. Can you do that?"
"I... I can try?"
"Good enough. Let's see if this fabric holds together or turns into confetti."
And in the cave in Afghanistan, as Tony Stark built armor and Barry Allen learned to control his powers, the countdown to escape continued.
Six weeks. Forty-two days. One chance to get it right.
The clock was ticking.
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord (HHHwRsB6wd) server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Can't wait to see you there!